Blood donation and transfusion are well known. In some instances, whole blood is collected. In others, selected blood components are separated from donated blood for the therapeutic benefits of particular blood components. Blood components used in many separation and collection technologies include platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells, stem cells and plasma.
In harvesting blood components, blood is removed from a donor through a needle assembly and then is processed by centrifugation or other appropriate separation techniques to isolate and collect the desired components. This procedure is often carried out very effectively by apheresis wherein blood is removed from a donor and processed in a disposable extracorporeal fluid circuit to obtain the desired components and the uncollected components are thereafter returned to the donor. Two illustrative blood component collection systems, which provide for this type of blood component collection procedure, are the COBE Spectra (trademark) and Trima (trademark) apheresis systems, which are commercially available from the assignee of the present application. Other illustrative devices, which also perform similar procedures, include the Haemonetics MCS or MCS+, the Baxter Amicus, and the CS-3000 apheresis machines.
Donor characteristics (supply) and patient needs (demand) are important factors in the ultimate usefulness of collected blood components. Donors are “screened” when they appear for a donation based on their medical status (e.g. blood pressure) and personal history (e.g. contact with diseases). Donor “eligibility”, based on the donor record of blood donation or other blood loss, is often determined by regulatory issues or blood center rules, which may limit total periodic (e.g., monthly or yearly) blood component losses from individual donors or may set minimum interval periods between donation occurrences. A large number of variables must be simultaneously managed in order to meet the blood bank collection goals and rules, which will thus also satisfy the needs of a hospital or other customer. Computerized information systems are tools that are beginning to prove useful in assisting in controlling parts of blood collection processes. Such an extracorporeal blood processing information management system is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/797,325, filed Mar. 1, 2001; Patent Cooperation Treaty application serial. No. PCT/US01/06696, filed Mar. 2, 2001 and Patent Cooperation Treaty application serial. No. PCT/US01/20540, filed Jun. 25, 2001, each of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Total periodic loss of plasma and total periodic loss of red blood cells (RBC's) are donor eligibility requirements usually set by government regulations or blood center rules. Frequently, however, a donor's actual loss of each of these blood components is unknown. It is desirable, nevertheless, that a blood processing information management system account for total periodic blood component loss restrictions.